Dave S wrote:
You dont have to have it as a prerequisite for training. Only to test.
You can attain the 50 hours while or in conjuction with your Instrument
training. You could easily get 10-15 hours of the CC in the form of
instrument training. More if you do your practice approaches greater
than 50 miles away from your base.

Pull out a sectional and sketch in all the approaches for the airports in
your area (you don't need every detail, just the IAF's, FAF's and MA
holding fixes). It now becomes easy to stitch together a series of
approaches where the missed of one is near the start of another, and
they're all going in the same general direction. 2 or 3 of those and
you'll find yourself 50 miles from home, so it all counts as X/C time.

It's very easy to fall into a rut of doing the same approaches over and
over again until you can do them in your sleep. Try and head off in
different directions each time and explore new territory.